


Lights Beyond Lights

by Sweaterset



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Coming Out, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Barisi, Will become Barisi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:51:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7977385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweaterset/pseuds/Sweaterset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I was so twisted up about it..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic ever, and as I hit "post" I want to thank the excellent writers out there who share their stuff! Here goes my very humble contribution. I changed the title of this work since there was already one by this name -- it was totally inadvertent and my apologies!

"Amanda, can I talk to you about somethin'?"

"Yeah, Carisi, of course." She waited a few beats for her normally ebullient coworker to continue, but he only turned his gaze to the break room floor and shifted on his feet. She prompted, "What's up?" 

"Uh, yeah. Promise me you won't freak out, okay?" He looked at her sidelong and returned his gaze to his shoes. Amanda was worried now; she reached over to swat his hand in a way she hoped showed both friendly playfulness and genuine concern. "Of course."

"I'm gay."

"Oh, Sonny!" She half-laughed, and then schooled her features before continuing, "Shit, I thought you were going to tell me you were dying or something." She caught her friend's eye, finally, and flashed him a soft, gentle smile. "Thank you for telling me."

He covered his face in his hands, briefly, then drew them down to fidget at his sides. "I've known for a while but...I don't tell people. When it is someone else, it's like great, cool, no problem, doesn't matter, whatever, you know? But when it's you... " his words trailed off into the air. He felt both relieved of a burden and utterly exposed; some of his fearful insecurities shed, only to be replaced with a feeling of raw vulnerability; a man flayed of his skin, all his defenses, the layers of armor that he hadn't even realized he'd been accumulating over the years. This was supposed to get easier, right? 

"Oh Sonny! It's cliche, but you know we're friends no matter what. Does anyone else...," she rotated an open hand around to signal the office and the precinct at large, "...know?"

"Well, a real nice lady with the NYC Gay Officers Action League...at my last precinct there were rumors, and it got kinda bad. And, uh, Liv. Well, she knows I'm seeing a guy..."

"Oh that's good, real good."

"Ha, yeah, it really is," he said with a smile. "I'm gonna tell everybody, Eventually. Like even my family. About me, and maybe about him. My sisters, I know they'll be cool. They'll tease me, of course. But my ma, my pop... That's gonna be rough. The Catholic thing, and then it'll be you're-in-your-thirties and what about that sweet girl Lena? I told her, I told my ex-girlfriend from undergrad absolutely first of anyone. I really loved her, like if it wasn't gonna work out with her, it wasn't gonna work with any woman. We broke up back then but stayed friends. And maybe I kinda let my family think things were back on with her... So they'd...leave me alone. When I came out to her, she was so kind about it. I hope she knows how much that meant, how good she was to me, ya know? I was real twisted up about it for a long time."

Amanda couldn't help herself; she took Carisi's hand and squeezed it tight.  
"Sonny, you are a good man, and everyone can see it. That's the most important thing. You deserve all the kindness and love you can find in this world, and then some. With whomever you find it. Please know that."


	2. Chapter 2

\--then--

"Sargent, can I talk to you for a minute?" Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. was standing in her doorway; she waved him in. She guessed he had a question -- or more likely, some supposedly brilliant insight to offer -- about the upcoming raid on Joaquin's pimp house.

"I have a boyfriend. I put him as one of my emergency contacts. He's an EMT! But I'd rather not tell anyone else in the squad. At my last two precincts, there were rumors. Just gossip...but it got, uh, weird."

Liv was surprised, mostly at herself and how easily she'd made certain assumptions about her new detective. Maybe this explained, in part, his awkward energy and overeager demeanor.

She was also surprised that anyone at SVU would be insensitive or homophobic, at least overtly. "I would never tolerate anything discriminatory here, Carisi. Of course, it's your call and I completely support you."

"Thanks, Sarge. I just knew I could trust you."

\--now--

It was Saturday, a grey winter morning. Sonny had nowhere to be. He reached for his phone. "Hey, 'Manda! How's motherhood? Can I have a play date with you and Jessie?"

"Yes, yes, come today. Like now."

It was a short train ride across town and then Sonny found himself at Amanda's. She looked tired but radiant. On this cold day, she was like a distillation of all things warm and maternal. He helped her maneuver the stroller outside and down the block. Little J seemed to be enjoying their brisk walk until she let out a formidable cry.

"You gotta Ferberize 'em," Sonny said as he bundled Jessie up tight and carefully lifted her into his arms.

Amanda regarded her daughter and her friend wistfully. Despite his sometimes outdated notions on childrearing, and occasional skirting just-this-close to presumptuous mansplaining, Sonny was pretty damn great. He would make an amazing father one day, if that were in the cards.

"You do it then, if it's so easy. How're things with you?"

"Eh, you know, Fordham's awesome. Work is work." He held Jessie to his chest and bounced her steadily. "Things aren't so good with the guy I'm seeing. He might move to Philly. And I'm so busy with cases and school anyway..."

Jessie let out another cry, albeit much softer. Amanda took her daughter and Sonny continued, "He's even more of a... closet case. Than me. I mean, being Catholic is one thing. His family's Mormon."

"That's some Angels in America level drama there." She saw his blank look. "It's a play turned into an HBO show, about AIDS and '80s Republicans and New York and Mormons and crappy boyfriends. It's pretty amazing."


	3. Chapter 3

Shit, shit, shit. What a shitty week. A shitty case: another child molester, right on the heels of the Hoda case. He was so tired -- bone-achingly tired, heartbroken, ground-down tired. He'd been so spacey earlier that day that Liv had given him a talking to. Of course, his relatively small personal life problems were nothing compared to rape, abuse, murder. This perspective did not make him feel any better. Rather, everything swirled together into a stew of ugliness and misery.

In his general ill humor and discontent, he pushed back from the meeting table with too much force. The legal tome he'd been looking over fell to the floor with a resounding thud. Take that, Code of Federal Regulations.

"Carisi, I see you treat the law of the land with the utmost respect," Barba said with a sidelong glance and that wry smile.

He studied the detective's fave for a split second. "Listen, it's not my place, but you look even worse for wear than usual..."

"Uh, thanks, Counselor. I'm tired is all. This week has been a doozy."

Barba laughed. "Carisi, I think you are the only man under 40 who has used the word 'doozy' since, well, 1945? Go home, email me that paper later this week, and I'll look it over." The lawyer stacked his own papers and shut his laptop.

"Thanks, Counselor."

"Would you like a drink before you go?" Barba offered as he went over to his antique cabinet and pulled out whiskey and two glasses.

"Uh, sure."

Barba couldn't fail to notice how truly grim the detective looked. He wasn't even trying to hide his foul mood with a shred of his usual ebullience. Barba had wondered how much of that was genuine, how much a put-on, a mask, or simply force of habit.

He handed Carisi the glass. After draining it, the detective said, "So today, Liv chewed me out. Yesterday I got dumped. This case we've got..." Sonny frowned. "Shit, Counselor, sorry for inviting you to my pity party."

Barba cocked his head. "You know, the great Julia Child said that a party without a cake is not a party, just a meeting. I don't have any cake, alas. So let's have some more swill; drown your sorrows."

Barba, even at his most exacting, had to admit that Carisi was slowly proving his mettle both in the precinct and while shadowing him. He felt strangely charitable at that moment. No, not charitable -- just honest. And he remembered how much even the smallest crumb of approval had meant to him back in his law school days.

"As much as it pains me to say it, Carisi, you've been doing very well lately. Don't write yourself off as a complete failure."

"Okay, wow, thanks. Really. Um, awesome." 

They kept drinking, sitting in relatively companionable silence.

"One more? Since, desgraciadamente, we don't have cake?"

"Uh, sure. I'd better warn you though. I've been told that sometimes, I'm a sad drunk. And this ain't my grandma's limoncello we're drinking. Well, actually, if it was, you'd probably be on the floor and I'd be calling poison control."

Carisi laughed and then retracted back into himself, stewing again. "It's just... We were seeing each other for almost a year. I mean, we could both tell things weren't working out, but I can't believe he fucking dumped me online. On fucking FaceChat."

Oh. Barba himself had played the pronoun game; Carisi didn't bother. He hadn't clocked the younger man as gay. Or bi, or queer... He'd heard or overheard the detective ramble on about his sisters, his mother, his childhood pets, that time he tried oil painting, his judo classes, and hell, even his new philodendron. Certainly never a mention of a romantic relationship of any kind. Which was, in itself, telling. In retrospect.

"Salud, Carisi. To better times."


	4. Chapter 4

"Bella, I need to tell you somethin'."

"What?"

"I'm gay."

"Hah! No, really, what?"

"No, really."

"What?" she stared at him, eyes wide. "Really, Sonny, like, really? Gay? But what about your girlfriends, what about Lena?"

"She's known for a while that I'm queer. I mean, I loved all my girlfriends, they're great people. I wanted it to work. So bad." He paused, scrunching his face, then continuing, "But on some level, I knew things weren't gonna go that way. When I've been with guys, it's been...fuckin' electricity." Sonny blushed.

"Are you with someone now?"

"No comment."

"Oh Sonny!"

"I'm really scared. Scared of telling Mom and Dad. They're gonna freak. I'm a detective, an NYC police officer, and I'm scared of this."

\---

The whole drive out to Staten Island, Sonny gripped the steering wheel tight but still felt like he was outside of his body, or in a dream. Like the cityscape passing by the car windows was unreal, projected on a scrim. Dodds was dead. Dodds, a good man. Conflicted. Private. Sonny hadn't even known he was engaged. Sonny was terrified, but he couldn't do this anymore.

He wouldn't leave until he'd said it. Upon arrival, he'd even given Bella his keys and had her swear not to relinquish them until the deed was done. Until the proverbial gay cat was out of the gay bag.

"Ma, Dad, I wanna tell you--"

"That you passed the bar! We know already!" screamed Theresa from the next room.

"Uh, I'm gay." He felt so small.

His mother stood up from her chair wordlessly. After a pause, his father said, "Huh. You're lucky to be living in this day and age." He looked...neutral? Or unreadable. Not confused, not shocked, not in disbelief, not disgusted -- but certainly not loving. Or happy. Or proud.

"Uh, yeah, well, that's true, I guess..."

Mrs. Carisi removed herself to the kitchen.

Sonny's face felt hot. He motioned to Bella; she gave him his car keys. He turned around on his heel and left, just like that.

He was just putting the key in the ignition when Bella bolted out the side door and down the driveway. "Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess. Let them process, you know? I just wanna go home and rest. I'll be fine."

His own unusual phrasing did not escape Sonny's notice. He'd said "home" meaning his moderately crappy bachelor apartment in the city, not "home" meaning the familiar sanctuary of his whole lifetime. He'd always been so close with his parents. Too close? Or never really close at all, in a way that counted?

Pushing such questions aside, he felt numb and on autopilot. Once inside his apartment, he toed off his shoes and climbed into bed. His phone pinged. Once, twice, again. It was Theresa.

[sonny r u ok?]  
[You should have told me you goob]  
[They'll be fine, they just need time]  
[srsly u ok?]

 

[yeah. Thanks T]


	5. Chapter 5

Liv put a hand on her friend's shoulder.

"Barba, I'd like to ask you something in absolute confidence."

The lawyer nodded. He assumed it was about Dodds the younger. The guilt that the lieutenant felt for his death had been made heartbreakingly plain.

The lieutenant steepled her fingers. "Did you know that Carisi's gay? Has he... talked to you about it?"

Huh. So she knew. He'd thought she might. "He let it slip, once. But I don't think he meant to." He paused. He hadn't given the matter much thought. It really wasn't his concern. At least it hadn't been... "Liv, since you are asking me, does that mean the whole squad knows? Or the opposite? Is he even out to friends? Family?"

"I honestly don't know. His work has been off lately. He's not...himself. And I don't think it's just...Dodds. I gather he's going through a rough time with his family, and you know how important they are to him. I don't want to presume, but I don't think he has a lot of support right now."

"Liv, shouldn't you be talking to him about all this? If his work really is suffering? Or, frankly, just respecting his privacy and leaving him alone?"

Barba could imagine Liv gently, subtly checking in with Carisi as well as the young detective's corresponding unwillingness to saddle his lieutenant with any more emotional burdens than what she currently bore.

Barba sighed. "Liv, I admire how much you care for your team, I really do. But he's a grown man. If it ever comes up, which I profoundly doubt it will, I'll do my best to lend an understanding ear." He knew she wouldn't let it rest without him giving her something, something gleaned in return for her betraying a confidence in hopes of attaining some greater good. 

"Thank you."

"You do know, there is no official gay speech I have to give him, right? I wasn't a particularly good legal mentor to him, and yet you presume that I could help him in this...regard. And that he'd even want me to."

Part of him felt irate that she, knowing him to be gay, was prevailing upon him in this way. Blast her, stirring awake his own better angels, yet again. She knew full well that her mere presence was enough to make him acknowledge his own feelings of moral obligation as something more than just a nuisance.

"I just know he respects you immensely, Rafael. Thank you."


	6. Chapter 6

Barba had a few regrets in his life thus far. Not spending more time with his abuela was a recent entry into the catalogue. Then, there were the stinging memories of youthful cowardice. For one, he had simply turned a blind eye as a classmate, deemed an obvious maricon, was bullied relentlessly all through middle- and high school. The first time Rafael witnessed the boy receiving a beat down against clanking lockers, he quickly scuttled away. He could escape. He had his friends. He could pass as "just" a bookworm, not a faggot.

It was instructive, this lasting guilt. It had, in its way, shaped his entire professional life. He was no latter day Harvey Milk, but he fought for the proverbial little guy. Those marginalized souls ground under society's wheel. Before realizing his special suitability to the courtroom, with its exhilarating sparring and undeniable allure, he had considered practicing environmental law, anti-discrimination employment law, immigration law.

He wasn't some model double minority, not a saint, not a crusader. Not a gay rights activist, not a radical priest organizing with the indigenous in Central America. He, Rafael Barba, was an asshole. And a damn fine lawyer who presented the best, strongest, most polished version of himself in court out of great personal vanity and hard-won pride. But this wasn't what sustained him, ultimately, at the firmament of things. What was always there, even when his ego faltered, was his righteousness. A sense of justice, and solidarity. He was a good man. 

These thoughts were playing through his mind when Detective Carisi rapped on his office door and entered.

"Carisi, thanks for coming by. I wanted to thank you for seeing me through the Heredio case."

"Just doing my job."

"Speaking of jobs, there's an opening in Brooklyn. I put in a good word for you. Didn't say you were available...just that they'd be lucky to get you if you were."

"Wow, thanks, Counselor. I've thought about it. Don't know if I'm ready."

"You'll make an excellent lawyer someday. My advice is, don't let it go for too long."

Carisi leaned against a solid table, across from Rafael's desk. "There's just so much change in my life at the moment, dunno if the time is right. Or maybe the time is exactly right..."

"Look, how about I set you up with an interview in Brooklyn, something informal?"

"Thanks, really, that'd be good."

"Consider it done." He jotted something down. "Listen, Carisi...you were rather drunk once and you mentioned you'd broken up with your boyfriend. It is none of my business, and I wasn't going to say a thing. But I know how it feels. Well, I don't know how it feels as a cop."

"You're gay?"

"It's an open secret, I assumed you knew."

"Nah, I mean..."

"Most of the lawyers here think I'm positively flaming, which just shows how little they know of the world, poor souls."

"I, uh, have learned to not ever assume that anyone's anything, you know? I think I have shit gaydar. And my, uh, femme-iest friends are straight guys..."

"Fair enough. Assumptions are dangerous. Family is different, though. I think my abuela knew about me from day one. I came out to her first. She took it in stride."

"Oh man. My parents, I only told them last month. They won't talk about it. I mean, we talk, but not really. It sucks."

"Sounds like Lucia and I. We would talk about everything except what mattered. It was an... understanding. A detente. But now we're getting closer, in our way. Things can and do change. For the better."


	7. Chapter 7

"No matter how absolutely frightening things get, and boy are they frightening these days…[t]here is still this beacon that is trust that who you are is who you are meant to be and all you were ever meant to be: truly yourself.” Raul Esparza, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV4AtERjXCU>

 

It was a cold, crystalline winter day. Carisi held their styrofoam-cup coffees as Barba put some change in the food truck tip jar. It was a walk-and-talk caffeination break.

The ADA gave a sigh. “My mother is coming by this afternoon, I promised to help her with something or other for her school. Sometimes I think she needs a small nation to run, with all her clout and energy. She'd be a mostly benevolent dictator.”

“Hmm, Queen Lucia has a nice ring to it. Then you'd be a prince,” Sonny teased, smiling and laughing against his wool scarf.

Barba feigned insult and then, in a neutral, tone, said, “How are things...with your family?”

“I’ve been keeping my distance. Just for now, you know. My ma, whenever we talk, she’ll keep on with religious stuff. She doesn’t understand…how I know I can be a good Catholic and also, ya know.”

“Will you be with them for the holidays?” “Yeah, it'll be cool. I mean, we just won't get into it. And honestly, it’ll be good to just be in Uncle Sonny mode. Easy.”

“I am imagining you covered in tinsel and small children.”

“Yup, that's about the size of it. What are you doing for Christmas?”

“Well, Lucia and I will have a nice dinner and also our customary, twice-annual argument about going to church. And I'll ultimately relent and go to midnight mass, to humor her. She's all about community, keeping up appearances, and tradition.”

“Theresa said she thinks tradition is something you always do ‘cause you've always done it. Rituals are something you do ‘cause it means something to you. I guess I'm all about ritual.”

“I myself am all about rice pudding and Christmas rum cake.”

“Fair enough. Have you ever had Italian cream cake? It's with rum or brandy. So good.”

\---

Barba had looked at his phone, and then pocketed it, only to repeat the same sequence of motions and thoughts. It was in that slow, liminal time after Christmas and before New Years, and he was off of work and bored, and he knew things were quiet at the station. He knew, too, how stressful navigating family holidays could be in the best of times, harder still in times of change and unsure footing on shifting sands.

He’d found himself missing his grandmother with more fierceness than just after her death, somehow, along with somehow preemptively grieving his mother’s death. Of course she was vital and well at present, and of course they spat incessantly for sport, and of course he might shuffle off this mortal coil before her thanks to some ex-con or gang lord wannabe, but he did love her dearly and they were really the only family each other had, now.

He picked up his phone and punched out a text.

[I was thinking of seeing a special exhibition at the Met. Today or tomorrow. Join me if you need a break from work and/or family merriment?]

[Sure! Haven't been in ages. Tomorrow at 11?]

[Let’s meet in Medieval Art just past the main entrance]

\---

They stood in front of a quattrocento Sienese triptych, an altarpiece with a tender Madonna at the center, flanked by rugged saints. The gold leaf caught the carefully calibrated gallery lighting.

Barba broke the silence: “Imagine seeing these by candlelight.”

Carisi nodded, contemplating the panels as the older man continued,“I came here. Once I’d stopped going to church, I came here instead. They say there’s the church of men, and then there’s the church of angels. I had so many problems with the hypocrisy of the former, but I still wanted a glimpse of the holiness of the latter.”

“That makes sense.”

“One of my close friends from Harvard was Jewish. God, I had such a thing for him. Anyway, he told me that in Jewish mysticism, the divine light of God becomes increasingly dimmer and distorted as it traverses layers of the world, of reality. It reaches us -- imperfect, but it reaches us.”

“Yeah. Right, so the world is broken, but not totally apart from God, from grace.”

“I”m not a dualist anymore -- everything's all the same. There's no separate realms of humanity and divinity, of the material world and something más allá, beyond. But I like to think about the light as potential, as a glimpse of our best selves, of justice, a better world that's possible.”

Barba turned and saw that Carisi was looking at him, appraisingly. He was used to being the one doing the scrutinizing, the courtroom staring.

“What?”

“You look like one of those portrait busts downstairs, you know, a patrician Roman guy. The imperfect is better than the ideal, in a way. For us humans. I mean, those chiseled Greek marble guys are babes. But um, unreal. Too perfect. I’d prefer the Roman portraits any day. They’re alive. Like you’d walk outside and see those same faces in the street, on the subway, or in a courtroom,” he smiled.

“Hmmph,” Rafael snorted in mock indignation, “I've always thought of myself as, you know, more Spanish, like a Velazquez painting.”

“Fine, fine. You could wear one of those funny outfits to a trial, it'd be great. Want to go to the cafe?”

Barba found himself slightly trailing Carisi -- his coworker, his friend -- and thinking the younger man would find his art historical analog in a Caravaggio, with all that drama of dark and light. With those louche, bright lips. Bacchus by way of an Italian-street-tough slash rough-trade slash artist’s-model. Sonny Carisi was too beautiful. And Barba, he loved beauty. And, well, he had eyes.


End file.
